What I saw last night

"Non-party candidates were technically free to stand for election, if nominated by an appropriate state body and approved by the party. This in fact regularly happened, particularly in the lower soviet bodies."

"They held elections, but all the candidates were chosen by the Communist Party. Lenin wanted to avoid factionalism within the party, so he passed an emergency order to control the nomination process that remained in effect until 1989."

"If you vote against them they'll see it and they can retaliate (for example by getting you shifted to a crappier job). Criticism/issues could also be raised with candidates, but again this wasn't really encouraged."

From Were elections in the Soviet Union rigged? At Reddit Ask Historians

I spent two otherwise nice nights of my life watching the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. I have never done that before, nor really cared much. I was sickened. By the end of last night's Bill Clinton speech I felt like I had been bathing in a cesspool. I felt dirty and nauseous.

The election itself was rigged, with voter suppression, registration tampering, voter purging, fraudulent voting machine tallies, and shredding of millions of "rejected" ballots. I read through emails that clearly shows an active bias in favor of the party nominee. To the point of offering pay to play positions and special seating to donors to the nominee.

The entire process was a rigged show to emotionally blackmail people into accepting the leader of the corporate state. I saw a steady stream of little immigrant girls, disabled people, blind people and Bill Clinton... every sob story under the sun brought on stage to try and convince me that a known liar, totalitarian war monger and person with zero empathy was actually a kind old grandma with the solutions to all of our problems. I saw endless lies about the record of the party nominee. And endless files of people of color (the saddest to me was the poor looted Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands delegations) and women who I have no idea why they were cheering the corporate state's designee.

I saw the Democratic Party humiliate Bernie Sanders, Keith Ellison, and not allow Nina Turner and Rosario Dawson a place on the stage to introduce Bernie. I wanted Nina to introduce Bernie, she is his most powerful speaker and advocate. Toe the party line or be purged.

I saw the crowds manipulated and phonied up. I saw with my own eyes a DNC goon grab a Justice for Palestine sign out of a Bernie delegate's hand. I heard how the audio volume was varied to make Hillary cheers loud, and wipe away Bernie cheers. I saw how states where Bernie won by a landslide all of a sudden have a majority, and virtual ties which were changed into landslides for the designated party nominee. I saw as they crowded the party's nominee's delegates around the microphone in even the states where Bernie won 80% of the vote and forced every spokesperson to take an oath of loyalty to Clinton.

When the delegates walked out in mass leaving half the convention center empty I saw them refocus the cameras to the front rows where states like Arkansas were located. Later I read the ad Iif it was real) to hire a crowd to fill the hall, but the two minutes I watched of Kaine being acclaimed today, the hall was emptier than last night.

This election, my friends looks like, smells like and is like Soviet elections during Soviet Stalinism. America is in a quicksand of totalitarianism that most Americans can't see, anymore than most Germans could see as they drank their champagne stolen from Vichy France and their hams from Nazi occupied Denmark.

To conclude I want to remind you that it was Democratic mayors (except Bloomberg who is supporting Clinton ) who violently suppressed Occupy. And a Democratic President who oversaw the types of survelliance that landed occupiers in jail.